Why I Quit: The Working People Weekly List

Every week, we bring you a roundup of the top news and commentary about issues and events important to working families. Here’s this week’s Working People Weekly List.

Richard Trumka: Why I Quit Trump’s Business Council: “On Tuesday, President Trump stood in the lobby of his tower on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan and again made excuses for bigotry and terrorism, effectively repudiating the remarks his staff wrote a day earlier in response to the white supremacist violence in Charlottesville, Va. I stood in that same lobby in January, fresh off a meeting with the new president-elect. Although I had endorsed Hillary Clinton for president, I was hopeful we could work together to bring some of his pro-worker campaign promises to fruition.”

AFL-CIO Chief Denounces Trump’s ‘Spirited Defense of Racism and Bigotry’: “Five members of President Trump’s manufacturing council have resigned since Monday, after Mr. Trump’s controversial response to the Charlottesville protests. The president of AFL-CIO, Richard Trumka, is the latest to leave the council. He said in a statement: ‘I cannot sit on a council for a president that tolerates bigotry and domestic terrorism.’ Trumka joins CBS This Morning to discuss why the labor movement had to ‘follow its conscience’ and why Mr. Trump’s comments were unacceptable.”

Top Labor Leader Resigns from Trump’s Jobs Council After Trump Blames ‘Both Sides’ for Charlottesville Violence: “Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, the largest group of labor unions in the country, quit President Trump’s manufacturing council Tuesday evening, with the labor leader saying he refused to accept any tolerance of ‘bigotry and domestic terrorism.'”

At The Top-Secret NAFTA Re-Negotiation Table – 85% Corporate Voices, 5% Labor: “The AFL-CIO’s Celeste Drake is at the NAFTA renegotiation table for working people. She says working people need a complete rewriting of NAFTA rules to eliminate the corporate domination. … ‘I want to emphasize it’s not a tweak here, you know, add a comma there, delete a sentence and then we’re done. And the labor issues are critically important.’”

AFL-CIO Urges Trump not to Abandon ‘Dreamers’: AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka called on President Donald Trump to defend the DACA program, which benefits thousands of young Mexican immigrants known as “Dreamers.” The program could be canceled if the government does not respond to a potential lawsuit.

AFL-CIO Demands Transparency in NAFTA Talks: “‘We are setting the bar high. We will only accept a deal that is renegotiated the right way. That means having a transparent process in which working families have a seat at the table, and ensuring that our freedom to stand together is protected and that all of us can receive a fair return on our hard work,’ AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in a statement Monday.“

Union Leaders Condemn Alt-Right-Caused Deaths in Charlottesville: “Union leaders, from AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka on down, strongly condemned the hate groups whose adherent, deliberately driving his car into a crowd of anti-hate counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Va., killed one woman and injured dozens.”

Corporate Intimidation Threatens Worker Freedom: “Anyone surprised by the outcome of last week’s union election at the Nissan plant in Canton, Miss., hasn’t been paying attention. To get a sense of how ugly the tenor of the Nissan union vote got, one need only have tuned to WYAB talk radio in central Mississippi, where one caller warned that pro-union Nissan workers would ‘go right back to’ ‘picking cotton and plowing fields or digging ditches.'”

Lori Pelletier: ‘Either You Respect Collective Bargaining or You Don’t’: “Lori J. Pelletier, the president of the Connecticut AFL-CIO, raised eyebrows by organizing a picket line outside the state Democratic Party’s annual fundraiser last year to protest a Democratic governor and legislature for opting to lay off unionized state workers instead of raising taxes on the rich.”